When the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled its bombshell report last week about this year’s elaborate Russian campaign to influence the 2024 U.S. presidential election, much of the attention quickly turned to the portion of the plot that involved funneling large sums of money to right-wing influencers in exchange for their production of pro-Russian material. That focus deprived the public of closer analysis of more important revelations emerging from the investigation.
In its meticulously documented indictment, filed simultaneously with the report’s release, the DOJ pulled the curtain back on what it called a covert malign influence operation sponsored by the Russian government and targeting audiences in the United States and elsewhere. Among the evidence of the elaborate “Doppelganger” operation included in the indictment were notes taken by Russian participants in the high-level meetings crafting it. The campaign was helmed by former Prime Minister Sergey Kiriyenko, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top lieutenants and even described as his right-hand man, underscoring Putin’s own closeness to the plot. The criminal indictment was accompanied by Treasury Department sanctions of 10 individuals and assorted Russian entities seeking to influence the election and undercut confidence in U.S. democracy.
Much about the operation has been discussed at length in the media, from the Kremlin’s creation of scores of phony websites designed to look exactly like respected Western news organizations to the payment of $10 million to a U.S. right-wing outlet—subsequently identified as Tenet Media—to promote content aligned with Russia’s interests. It was Tenet that lavished the network of right-wing influencers with massive sums of money.